"If you two are going to be so disgustingly cute you need to warn me first so I can make myself scarce. I'm over here single as a Pringle and now I feel even more pathetically alone," Ellie groaned, looking over at Dylan that had his hands on my waist, kissing my neck.

I pushed him back and gave him a peck on the lips and a smile before saying, "We need to focus mister."

"I'm sorry. I can't. My fiance is too hot," he whispered, leaning in and kissing my neck right below my ear and making me giggle.

Ellie shot us a dirty look again and we both laughed before he finally said, "Fine. I'll try to be good."

We were in Ellie's backyard, stringing lights for the wedding because we decided to have the ceremony in her beautifully landscaped backyard. Since her Dad was a highly paid doctor and her Mom was the queen of all things design, they had a beautiful house and yard.

Their backyard had a white ornate gazebo surrounded by blooming light pink flower bushes and a little pond with large orange coy fish. There was also a tall white privacy fence surrounding the lush green grass and there was plenty of room to put down folding chairs and an aisle leading to the gazebo where we would stand to say our vows. Since they were like my second family I thought getting married at their house would be perfect and her family agreed to it without a second thought.

We kept all the wedding duties: the decorating, catering and cake making responsibilities to ourselves and our family and closest friends so we wouldn't have to worry about any leaks to the media. I told Dylan I'd rather have a mediocre cake and photos than have our wedding crashed by paparazzi and he agreed.

Word had spread that we were engaged because I had been seen around town with the big diamond ring on my left hand but no one knew where or when it was happening and I planned to keep it that way.

"Hey Dylan. Do you have any hot friends coming to this wedding you could hook me up with?" Ellie asked, sitting down at the table to take a break while Dylan and I stapled a string of white Christmas lights to the fence.

"Trust me. I love my friends to death but I wouldn't hook them up with my worst enemy. If my sister even gave them a second glance I'd shit a brick," he laughed. "My little brother's 21 and he's a good guy, but he lives too far away."

"Hey, what about Dave?" I asked her.

"Dave?" she asked, scrunching her eyebrows and thinking it over. "You know I never even considered him. We've just been friends through you. I mean he is cute. He has a good job and he's not a cheater. He shares my obsession with movies and my stupid dorky sense of humor. That's actually not a half bad idea. Maybe you're onto something."

My phone dinged on the table and I said, "Ellie will you see who that's from?"

She reached over and grabbed my phone and her eyes widened.

"Who is it?" I asked.

"Ummm," she laughed awkwardly. "It's a text from Caden."

"Caden who?"

"Your old high school boyfriend," she said, sounding almost as surprised as I was.

"What? I haven't talked to him in four years? What the hell does he want?" I asked as I got down off the stepladder I had gotten on to hang the lights. I walked over, took the phone from her and looked down at the text message on my screen in disbelief.

I read it out loud. "He says, 'Hey, I got contacted by TMZ and they offered me $500,000 for an exclusive to spill any dirt I have on you because apparently you're engaged to Dylan fucking Chase now. Damn. I don't even know what to say Bren. Just call me when you get this. We need to talk."

I dropped the phone and exhaled. "Fuck. Of course they'd reach out to Caden. What should I do?"

"I'd call him," Dylan said, walking up next to me. "Just see what he wants, but be careful what you say because he might be recording the conversation. Trust me, people do that."

"Okay," I said, taking a deep breath in and letting it out. Pressing the button to call Caden back was painful. The last thing I wanted to do was talk to that asshole again. I put him on speakerphone so Ellie and Dylan could hear every word so there wouldn't be any misunderstandings of what was said.

"Hey Bren," he answered. "Long time no talk."

"Yeah, not long enough," I muttered. "What do you want Caden?"

"Wow, such hostility," he laughed.

"Yeah can you blame me? You said you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me but then you went off to college and got another girlfriend behind my back that you tried to hide. You weren't exactly boyfriend of the year."

"Yeah, I'm ummmm, really sorry about that Bren."

"Right," I scoffed.

"I am! It's been almost four years ago but I still think about how the two years I spent with you were the happiest of my life. Losing you is my biggest regret and I wish I could go back and do it differently. I was young and stupid and didn't realize what I had Bren. Can't we put it behind us and give it a second chance?"

"Are you seriously trying to get back together with me?" I asked, shaking my head in disbelief. "Wow."

He paused and I heard him take a deep breath in and let it out.

"C'mon, don't be like that. I thought about picking up the phone and calling you so many times to apologize but I chickened out, but it's better late than never right? You're the love of my life and the one that got away," he said with an exhale. "You can't marry that guy Bren. I love you."

Dylan and Ellie both looked just as shocked as I was with wide eyes and raised eyebrows. I couldn't believe Caden was really doing this the day before my wedding. He was even more selfish and delusional than I previously thought and that was saying a lot.

"Caden, I learned a long time ago that you only love me when it's convenient for you and now that someone famous wants me you suddenly come crawling back out of nowhere? You think I don't know you're just doing this to get your fifteen minutes of fame from being the guy that stole a girl from Dylan Chase? How dumb and naive do you think I am?" I asked, angrily.

"Well if you're gonna be a bitch, maybe I'll call TMZ back," he shouted.

"Oh yeah? And tell them what?"

"That I have some juicy gossip on you. Five hundred thousand dollars sounds pretty good right now," he threatened.

I narrowed my eyes. "There's one problem with your plan asshole. You're the one that cheated on me and broke my heart. I didn't do anything wrong, so what juicy gossip is there to tell?"

"Oh I'm sure I could come up with something really scandalous. How would they know it's not true? I've got tons of pictures and videos of us together for proof we dated and I could probably make up anything and they'd believe me ........ unless."

"Unless what?" I shouted.

"Unless Dylan pays me a million dollars for my silence. If he did that I'd sign an agreement to never talk to the tabloids about you guys and you'll never hear from me again. I swear."

I gasped. "You have some nerve!" I shouted. "After what you put me through four years ago, you seriously have the audacity to blackmail me too? Wow. No wonder my Dad and Ellie always hated you."

"Hey Caden. It's Dylan," his deep voice said from beside me. "I have some bad news for you bud. I might just be twenty three but this isn't my first rodeo. I've been famous long enough to know how this goes."

"What are you talking about?" Caden asked.

"I'll tell you what's gonna happen. We're going to forget this little conversation ever happened and you're never going to say a single word to the tabloids about Brenley."

"Why would I do that?" he asked with a smug laugh.

"Well, I wasn't sure what you were going to say, so just to be safe I recorded the conversation with my phone while she had hers on speaker phone. What you just did is called extortion, trying to get money from someone through threats or blackmail. The bad news for you is, that's a felony with about a five year prison sentence."

There was silence on the line now.

"So I'll make you a deal. I'm going to keep this little recording I made to myself and I won't press charges against you, as long as you never utter a fucking word to any media about me or Brenley. Forget her phone number and forget you ever met her. You hear me?"

He stuttered and said, "Yes sir. Yes sir. I promise. I won't say a word. I'm sorry."

"You better not or you know what will happen. Now delete her number from your phone and pretend we don't exist and we'll do the same. Have a nice life asshole," he said, hanging up with a satisfied smile.

My jaw dropped open and I looked at Dylan with so much adoration.

"That was really fucking hot. Just when I thought I couldn't love you any more, you go and do something like that," I laughed. "Did I mention I love you?" I asked, with a smile, pulling him down into a kiss.

"I love you too babe," he said, with a smile, pulling me close and kissing me again.

"People! We've talked about this!" Ellie said, as we pulled back from the kiss and looked over at her. She stomped off grumbling something about being single and I looked up at Dylan and we both laughed lightly, before he kissed me again.